One PC, Six Hard Drives, 37 OSes

“This project started with a simple dual boot between Windows 98 and 2000. Then I added some Linux distributions and BeOS. Somewhere along the line, adding operating systems became an obsession. I wanted to see exactly how many I could stuff in one box. It also became a project to prove people wrong. Many people told me that what I achieved could not be done.” Read the original article at TechTV and the interview with the OS geek, Richard Robbins, at MaximumPC.

About The Author

30 Comments

2002-09-26 12:39 am

Interesting article. I think it’s quite easy to get addicted to installing new OSs once you’ve done it succesfully once. There’s quite a thrill in seeing seeing them boot up for the first time, nevermind using them!

Mark

2002-09-26 1:12 am

while i myself was succesful in killing my computer with just TWO operating systems, that this guy can have a single system work together so nicely is quite a feat. nice work.

2002-09-26 1:41 am

Wow!!

2002-09-26 1:46 am

Is it fair to count Linux distro’s multiple versions of the same OS (e.g. QNX 6.1, 6.2), and DOS shells as different OS’s?

By my standards, there are 20 different OS’s on this machine. Still an impressive number:

MS-DOS

DR-DOS

FreeDOS

OS/2 Warp 4

SkyOS

Windows 1.0.1

Windows 2.03

Windows 3.1

Windows 95

Windows 98

AtheOS

Syllable

Aos/Oberon

BeOS

QNX

FreeBSD

OpenBSD

NetBSD

Linux

Minix

2002-09-26 2:05 am

He didn’t even try to get x86 Solaris on there – the others are easy – but on a hard drive Solaris hates everything, and everything hates Solaris.

Also, as far as I would be concerned – Linux is Linux, regardless of how many distro’s he used – it counts only once, and in the same vein – I *might* count differing versions of DOS, but not x number of versions of DOS each with it’s own Operating Environment (Win 1.x, 2.x, 3.x) or DOS Windowing System. MS-DOS is MS-DOS. Same for 95/98/Me – it’s the same OS.

It’s not like we all havent done the same thing – he just went overboard.

List of OS’es on my current Workstation:

XOSL (it’s a dessert topping and a floor wax)

Windows NT

-2000 Professional

-XP Professional

Linux

-Red Hat

-Cosmoe

-LFS

BeOS

-5.03

-“Dano”

QNX

Syllable

Solaris 8(miraculously playing nice with others – praise jebus)

2002-09-26 3:18 am

However I’d like to know about the partitioning system he used…..

could be really useful, you know?

2002-09-26 3:26 am

Hehehe … I like his comment here:-

“Do you have a favorite OS, or are they like “children” — you love them all “equally but differently”?

Alas, I do share a unique type of love with each one of my beloved systems. But if I had to pick one to be crowned the birthright, I would go with BeOS. Why? Because it minds its own business, is easily pleased, and doesn’t complain.”

2002-09-26 4:48 am

I feel out of place, I only ever got to 4 differant OS’s now just one. Beos deffinantly is the most friendly one for this kind of thing. It will work with anything else and install wherever you like and not where you don’t want it. Also I love bootman. Does anyone know if there is a limitation to how many OS’s it could handle. Obviously it is at least 4. I thought it was very nice of Be to make a bootloader that worked with other OS’s though in their situation that was key, and sorta their point.

I know WinXP boot loader will alow for multiple windows OS’s will it work with non windows OS’s like freeBSD? I think installing beos is worth it for just the bootloader. If done right you can install beos, set up bootman and then delete beos but leave the bootloader. I had this and it was very nice.

2002-09-26 4:50 am

I could have sworn when they had the guy on TechTV he had 39 OS’s… I could be mistaken though.

2002-09-26 6:04 am

OK, this guy wins. Though, I wouldn’t say that <Win95 are actual operating systems. I only have 15 installed systems on my HDD, and lately I’ve been thinking of removing a few of them, like windows and linux cause I never use them. Anyway, here goes my list:

AtheOS

AmigaOS

BeOS x 2

Windows 98

Windows 2000

FreeDOS

MSDOS

OS/2

MacOS

Gentoo linux

FreeBSD

LUnix

QNX

QubeOS

And I think most of you know that BeOS is my favourite and also my main system. BeOS is my lover and AmigaOS is my pet.

2002-09-26 6:25 am

.. when my eyes hit “37 OS” and “obsessed” I thought that this was some sort of confession or coming out on your behalf, finally…. but now I think you are ghost writing under the name Richard Robbins… 🙂 🙂

2002-09-26 7:05 am

I wonder why does he need Win98 and Win98SE….. Makes no sense to me…

2002-09-26 7:17 am

A few posters don’t seem to get the point here… trying to say, “Well, I count this, that, and the other as only one OS…” and other such things. He was trying to get as many seperate OS installations on the same machine as possible, not just enough for functionality. Win98 and win98se ARE different OSes. He sure didn’t need to install both, thats true, but the point wasn’t exactly about need, now was it?

2002-09-26 7:46 am

I use a variety of operating systems too.

I just do it this way:

On my Athlon XP 1900+ system:

Windows 2000

On my dual Athlon MP 1700+ system:

FreeBSD

On my iBook:

OS X

On my storage server:

Linux

Makes much more sense to me

2002-09-26 7:48 am

I didn’t find Solaris particularly tricky to install, and it plays nicely with the others:

Win XP

Mandrake Linux

BeOS

OS/2 Warp 4

FreeBSD

Win 98SE

QNX

All booted with Boot Magic.

Darwin – thats a tricky one!

Dave

2002-09-26 7:48 am

What really impresses me is that he has Windows 1.0.1 working….

BTW does he actually do any work with his computer?

2002-09-26 8:11 am

Windows 98SE is almost like a service pack to Windows 98. It makes as much sense as having multiple partitions of Windows NT 4 for each service pack.

2002-09-26 8:56 am

I just dug out my beos bible (release 4 of the OS), and thge boot loader system commander V – http://www.v-com.com can handle 100 os’s on the one computer.

2002-09-26 9:50 am

Windows 1.01 always crashes for me when I try to start a program

I have WinME, Win2000, WinXP and BeOS on my computer, I also wanted to install OS/2 v4 but it didn’t work without completely removing all my partitions, and that’s too much for me

2002-09-26 1:15 pm

“He probably has no friends or girlfriend, and lives alone if he’s got so much time as to be able to do this”

8)=

2002-09-26 1:25 pm

According to Guiness World Records, someone holds a world record for…

– longest fingernails.

– most hours spent on a pogostick.

– eating an airplane.

– biggest beard of bees

– making the world’s smallest violin

The point is, there ain’t much practicality, but it’s nice to have a record.

2002-09-26 2:18 pm

While I have to commend the guy on his achievement, there is no way that I will ever jack around with dual booting an OS again. A few years ago I thought it was great to be able to dual boot different operating systems so that I could enjoy the benefits of both OSs. But ONE wrong move and you end up wasting perhaps DAYS of effort, not to mention the hundreds of decisions that were made to get the system up and running. Putting multiple OSs on one hard drive is like building a house of cards and with every new floor there is more and more pressure to get it right.

So for anyone that might be thinking of following in this guy’s footsteps I would seriously recommend VMware or Altiris imageblaster or even Ghost. YOu will sleep better at night. Trust me.

Just my humble opinion.

2002-09-26 3:06 pm

To FH or david pitt… how exactly did you get Solaris and Win2k playing nicely together? What order did you install them? / Are there any specific steps I should follow to get them to install coexist peacefully if I already have Win2k installed and want to get Solaris 8 on there too, or should I start fresh from scratch? Any information would be greatly appreciated…

(sorry if this is a little OT, just saw this and it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while now… :/)

2002-09-26 3:48 pm

I, too, am toying with that idea (OK, it’s NT instead of Win2K, but that’s almost the same as far as boot is regarded). I guess I could use the bootsect.ini trick? Just tell me if that’s the way, the rest I know, did it already for Linux on a drive with more than 1024 cyls and LILO + NT. Workz grate ;o)

thanks in advance

2002-09-26 5:08 pm

At one point, I had Win98, Linux, BeOS, QNX and Oberon all bootable on the same machine. I was never able to get BSD into a usable state with the other 5. Solaris x86 i was | | this close to getting running, but my vid card wasnt supported.

its an expensive hobby, but…..

2002-09-26 6:41 pm

I’ve only got five different OS’s installed on my main computer, and that’s enough for me: Win98, MS-DOS 6.22/WFW 3.11, BeOS, FreeBSD, and Mandrake Linux. Six, I guess, if you include BeOS PE. Seven, if you count Windows 286, but I wouldn’t–It’s just an Operating Environment running on DOS. I previously had a couple of others on there, but the occasional hard drive wipeout made me start over. I use System Commander as my boot loader. I recommend using the latest version, earlier versions had limitations, especially with reading the newer, larger hard drives.

Playing with OSes is fun, but there comes a time when you’ve gotta buckle down and do some serious work. If you want to multi-boot, plan carefully, understand the limitations of each OS, and like the guy said, back up your important data, just in case.

2002-09-26 6:55 pm

This is neat trivia, but how useful is it?

What does it have to do with OSNews?

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Oh, Wait ….I get it now!

This is the first on topic post in weeks!

anyone got more?

2002-09-26 7:02 pm

I like this. It’s arcane, novel news that no one else (O.K. someone posted the link) would care enough about to post.

Only one question.

Why didn’t he tell us about it here first? I feel hurt:(

2002-09-26 10:37 pm

What’s with this myth? It runs on mine pretty well.

Kev

2002-09-27 6:03 pm

“…the OS geek, Richard Robbins, at MaximumPC.”

You know, I used to subscribe to MaximumPC. I loved it. I thought they gave you a non-partial, tell-it-like-it-is view. That was when all I knew was Windows. When I started using Linux, and BeOS, and playing with my friends Mac, I began to realize them for what they are:

Just another Microsoft suck-ass rag.

They will never, never get my money again.

Now, about the actual story: Great read! We need more stories like this!